Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

A historians new look at how Union blockades brought about the defeat of a hungry Confederacy

In April 1861, Lincoln ordered a blockade of Southern ports used by the Confederacy for cotton and tobacco exporting as well as for the importation of food. The Army of the Confederacy grew thin while Union dinner tables groaned and Northern canning operations kept Grants army strong. In Starving the South, Andrew Smith takes a gastronomical look at the wars outcome and legacy. While the war split the country in a way that still affects race and politics today, it also affected the way we eat: It transformed local markets into nationalized food suppliers, forced the development of a Northern canning industry, established Thanksgiving as a national holiday and forged the first true national cuisine from the recipes of emancipated slaves who migrated north. On the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Fort Sumter, Andrew Smith is the first to ask “Did hunger defeat the Confederacy?”.

Review

Southern stomachs were even more valuable military targets than Southern armies according to this absorbing history of the fight for food during the Civil War. Food historian Smith chronicles the devastation wrought by the Union blockade and the cutoff of Northern agricultural trade on the South whose farm economy was based on cotton and tobacco. (The curtailment of salt imports alone he notes made meat preservation almost impossible.) The resulting shortages abetted by the Confederate government's misguided confiscations from its citizens hobbled the Southern war effort Smith contends (surrenders at Vicksburg and Appomattox were dictated by starvation; rioting women chanted "Bread or Blood!" and plaintive letters from hungry families prompted mass desertions). Meanwhile the North's booming industrialized agricultural system kept Yankees fat Smith notes. An 1864 civilian campaign to send every bluecoat a Thanksgiving feast succeeded lavishly while the Southern riposte could muster only a few bites of hardtack and meat. A corrective to blood and guts operational histories Smith's lucid study gives war production logistics and home front morale in the Civil War the prominence they deserve. 8 pages of bamp;w photos. (Apr.) " Publishers Weekly Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved."

Review

"Southern stomachs were even more valuable military targets than Southern armies, according to this absorbing history of the fight for food during the Civil War. Food historian Smith chronicles the devastation wrought by the Union blockade and the cutoff of Northern agricultural trade on the South, whose farm economy was based on cotton and tobacco. (The curtailment of salt imports alone, he notes, made meat preservation almost impossible.) The resulting shortages, abetted by the Confederate government's misguided confiscations from its citizens, hobbled the Southern war effort, Smith contends (surrenders at Vicksburg and Appomattox were dictated by starvation; rioting women chanted 'Bread or Blood!' and plaintive letters from hungry families prompted mass desertions). Meanwhile, the North's booming industrialized agricultural system kept Yankees fat, Smith notes. An 1864 civilian campaign to send every bluecoat a Thanksgiving feast succeeded lavishly, while the Southern riposte could muster only a few bites of hardtack and meat. A corrective to blood-and-guts operational histories, Smith's lucid study gives war production, logistics, and home front morale in the Civil War the prominence they deserve. 8 pages of b&w photos. (Apr.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright PWyxz LLC)

About the Author

ANDREW F. SMITH is a faculty member at the New School and editor-in-chief of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. He lives in New York.